
You’re crocheting a beautiful scarf or blanket and after some time of repetitive rows you look down to see the width is smaller than when you started. Somewhere along the way, a few stitches have accidently been dropped and you’ve accidently decreased your stitches.
If you’ve experienced this (and I’m positive every crocheter has), you know how quickly and unexpectedly it can happen. A simple repetitive stitch is often the worst culprit because of how easy it is to get lost in the pattern of making the same stitch over and over.
Take a peak at this swatch: 4 rows with equal stitch counts. The edges are straight and the rows transition smoothly from one to other.

The next image is of another swatch that contains rows of the same stitch. The difference is that in row 4, a stitch was missed creating an accidental decrease and begins to show some narrowing.

Hopefully if you’ve had this happen, you haven’t gone too far before noticing and only need to rip out a few rows. The best thing you can do to help prevent an accidental decrease or skipped stitch is to count. It can be tedious to do every row so perhaps every couple rows would be preferred. Getting into a routine habit of regularly counting stitches is beneficial for any crocheter.
If you’d like to see my past Tip Tuesday regarding accidental increases, it can be found here: Crochet Tip Tuesday – Accidental Increases.
I hope you found this little tip helpful! Head over to my Contact page if you would like to connect (I always love to hear from you!) or check out my Instagram page here: @sweet_bee_crochet
Happy Crocheting!